My partner is Lebanese and one issue that has consistently come up with any discussion of Marxism (and honestly the online left as a whole) is Uyghur genocide denial. Essentially, they see it as proof of (white) western leftists being hypocrites and having a glaring Islamophobia problem. I’m inclined to defer to them, but at the same time, I’ve found myself often politically aligning with MLs on other issues, and I know very little about Chinese internal politics or the Uyghurs myself, so I would greatly appreciate being able to get an understanding of what the ML perspective is.
Unfortunately a lot of sectarian BS amplifying western propaganda. The west cares neither about muslims nor the chinese but somehow cares about chinese muslims. It is very difficult to convince someone who has bought into the sectarianism to step out of the bubble because you are essentially asking them not to believe salafist/wahabbist perspectives which has now become unfortunately institutionalised into various sunni institutions the world over; the most overt example is the overwhelming lack of response to the genocide in Palestine by the Sunni world in sharp contrast to the Shi’ite (namely Hezbollah, Ansarallah and Iran).
I mean the whole thing was “initially” based on Adrian Zenz’ paper (German far right Christian fundementalist nutjob with Langley/CIA links) using I think a sample of 8 people who can’t be traced/sourced properly and extrapolated to the whole region.
There are a ton of videos online about Xinxiang where ordinary folks go there and see how Uighurs live with their language on the national currency, high HDI, advsnced infrastructure and technology, empowerment of local farmers and fisherman with agricultural tech, in charge of local governments and often beating the west on standard of living, more mosques per capita in china than the west etc. And obviously no apartheid. And all the other muslim domimant chinese ethnicities that the West and their satellites in west asia conveniently ignore.
The region also benefits significantly from both domestic and foreign tourism to experience Uyghur culture because it is actively promoted; could you say the same about for example Israel - are people visiting Israel to experience palestinian culture? Or how about the west with similar proportions of muslims as china; is anyone visiting the West specifically to experience various forms of Islamic dominant cultures (eg France for Algerian culture? Is Algerian arabic even on the euro?)? Is it part of their tourism strategy? If not, then why not?
There have been so many visits from Islamic countries dignitaries and heads of state, various corporations around the world who have to make the case to their own anti-chinese western/western-aligned governments that Xinjiang is safe and very specifically there is no Uyghur oppression (VW report being the most famous example).
If one cannot differentiate between salafist extremism funded by the West and how to fight that versus attempts to keep local islamic culture against forced SA/UAE/qatari imports then trying to convince someone otherwise is an uphill battle.
If you got the money, go visit there. There’s nothing that will beat western propaganda than seeing with your own eyes.
https://redsails.org/the-xinjiang-atrocity-propaganda-blitz/
Edited to add: when you hear/see ETIM involved in this just want to remind one that this is a pattern of abuse that the West/US has a long history of engaging in whether it is funding/training narcotic cartels in central america, or fascists in Americas/Eastern Europe/Asia, or salafists in West Asia/Africa/heartlands; it’s all the same game of imperialism to them and justify their involvement and presence in those areas formenting instability, developing the power of the local comprador bourgoisie class and defacto western rule. Liberals often try to rationalise events as isolated from the whole but when you see the above geopolitical trend it becomes harder to justify it.